Why Your Project Keeps Growing (and How to Fix It)

Yesterday, we talked about spaghetti code, which, if we’re playing the blame game, is usually the developer’s fault. Today, let’s dive into scope creep, a problem that’s often a 50/50 issue between management and developers.

Scope creep happens when a project’s size keeps growing beyond the original requirements. It’s insidious because of its slow, gradual nature. If a project’s scope suddenly exploded, it wouldn’t be tolerated. But with scope creep, since each new request seems small and reasonable, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when things went off the rails. There’s no clear “straw that broke the camel’s back” to blame—it all just adds up over time.

Scope creep can come from both sides. From management, it might look like one more feature, one more design tweak, or one more setting that will “really” make the marketing page shine. For developers, this is known as gold-plating—adding in extra bug fixes, advanced settings, or even personal pet features. These might be good ideas, but they often come from internal sources, not direct customer feedback, making them speculative.

In the end, scope creep leads to projects that go over budget and miss deadlines, offering only questionable value for customers.

To avoid scope creep, it’s important to have firm objectives in place. For every new request, ask yourself: does this align with the project’s main goals? If it helps reduce complexity or genuinely supports those goals, it’s probably worth considering. But if it’s not essential, it’s better to save it for the next version.

Remember, most software is never really “finished.” There’s always another version. Saying no today means this version gets done right.